


Indelible

by disgruntled_owl



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Castles, Dubious Consent, Gothic, Horror, Humiliation, Imprisonment, Intimidation, Kissing, Knifeplay, M/M, Missing Scene, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Stripping, Threats, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntled_owl/pseuds/disgruntled_owl
Summary: Jonathan Harker searches Count Dracula’s castle for his stolen journal, which contains memories he is terrified to lose. Dracula knows that while paper may burn and ink may fade, what is written in flesh and blood is indelible.
Relationships: Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	Indelible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatgothlibrarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgothlibrarian/gifts).



My journal is gone. Spattered ink glistens on the expanse of desk where it once rested, illuminated by a taper I did not light. I sprawl on the bed, still in my waistcoat and shirtsleeves, my sweat-damp hair matted against my face. Sleep must have overtaken me in the late afternoon. Now night has fallen over the castle, and the dread presence of the Count permeates the air. 

I hold my breath and wait for the candle flame to wriggle, a footfall to sound. Several silent minutes pass. I rise and search for more signs of trespass: emptied drawers, gaping armoire doors. The Count has already absconded with my letter of credit and the various maps and notes I made of my travels, the cairns meant to guide me back from this forsaken place. When I realized what he had done, I slit the edge of a cushion and hid my journal in its stuffing, daring to remove it only when I believed I was alone. 

The room seems otherwise undisturbed, save several leaves of paper, white as moth wings, beneath the desk. Their edges are tattered; they have been ripped from their binding. Sweat beads on my forehead. I have betrayed myself, then, by daring to write on the brink of exhaustion and then leaving the record of my thoughts exposed. The Count’s territory extends out to the tree lined horizon and into every nook and crevice of the castle; any solitude I imagined was a delusion. 

Something scratches outside. The corner of another mutilated page curls around the bottom of the door. With my heart in my throat, I fumble with the knob. It is unlocked. I have indeed been summoned.

I creep back to the desk and slip into my jacket. On instinct, I snatch the letter opener from my stationary set and slip it into my pocket. Its blade, unused since I arrived in Transylvania, is still sharp. I swallow, stroke my neck, and venture out into the hall. 

Torches cast halos on the corridor’s walls, while more torn pages dot the floor. He has left a trail for me. I creep past crossed swords striped with tarnish, stained glass shrouded in cobwebs, the deathless portraits of tyrants. My slow pace stretches my journey to an agonizing length, but this is the place the Count’s brides lurk, and I must not be heard. At the thought of them I hear the slither of skirts, the smacking of lips, the exultant inhalation that precedes their bite. I sense the absence of all the blood, the life, they have already drained out of me. My terror overcomes me and I freeze, my fist clenching the handle of the letter opener. Nothing moves. I chastise myself as I shudder; already I am allowing my mind to play tricks on me. If I lose my grip on what is real, I am lost. 

I descend stairwells and cross cavernous halls, following pale leaf after pale leaf. I inspect each one for words, be they mine or his, but find them all blank. 

This eerie trail winds east through a passageway dotted with small windows. Blue-tinged moonlight leaks through their panes onto the stone floor. Beyond them, an endless carpet of trees veils the yawning gorge below. I rest my head against the glass and listen to the wind howl, demanding entry. Starvation and fatigue braid themselves around my bones. The plentiful food that greeted me when I arrived here is a distant memory, and hunger frays my thoughts. 

I release a sputtering, desperate laugh. With this shambling body I would seek the Count, whose true nature grows more unfathomable with each passing hour. Is my journal worth the risk? I could go back, shut my door, bar it, wait for daylight. I could pretend the book never existed, trading it away for one more day of empty harmony with the Count while I search for a way out.

I raise my head and catch a glimpse of my haggard reflection. My cheeks are sunken beneath wild eyes; my cracked lips are surrounded by shadowy stubble. Did mad Renfield gaze into this same glass and try to reassemble the man he was before he came to Castle Dracula? Did he clutch this same sill as his memories disintegrated? I heard only the rumors about him before I left for Transylvania—I did not visit the asylum to see him myself, although now I wish I had. Instead I am at the mercy of my imagination. I picture him frantically grabbing the handles of locked doors as fear washes away his reason. I see him scribble in a diary of his own, then recoil from his thirst for the fly alighting on his page. I hear his laughter curdle into screams as it echoes off these towering stone walls. 

I force myself to my feet and press on. I must retrieve the journal. It may be my last link to my uncorrupted self. 

At long last, I spot red firelight seeping from an open doorway. Wood crackles in the room beyond. The glow of the hearth spreads over shelves laden with books; the letters on their spines shimmer. The silhouette of a high-backed chair looms before the flames. Light refracts through a faceted wineglass, rendered garnet by its contents. Fingertips brush against paper—a page turns. 

“‘What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window,’” the Count reads aloud. He has no doubt detected me long before I reached the library entrance. “I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms.’” His voice is resonant and clear, his tone almost melodious. “My very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.’” 

The hairs prick on the back of my neck—these are my words. 

“‘At first I could not believe my eyes,’” he continues. “‘I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion.’” Hearing him read my writing aloud is like reading it reflected in a mirror, each word contorted into something alien. His inscrutable tone and expression bedevil me all the more.

“‘I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.” 

He pauses and raises the glass to his lips. The liquid tips into his mouth. I am compelled toward him, as if pulled by an ebb tide. As I approach, I steal glances about the room. From the shadowy spaces beyond the hearth, a motionless arm extends across the floor, its hand outstretched, its fingers rigid. A dark pool has formed beneath the wrist. 

I stagger to a halt before the Count. He appears so refreshed that time itself seems to have reversed its effects upon him. His hair flows loose over his shoulders, dark as ink, as are his brows and moustache. He has removed his billowing cloak and reclines in black trousers and a white tunic open at the neck. The firelight illuminates ruddy, supple flesh beneath his collar. The sight of my crimson leather-bound journal in his hands makes my heart leap, as though he holds a piece of my very body. He thumbs a few pages ahead, never once looking up. 

“‘As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant’s power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion.” He strokes his mustache thoughtfully. “‘But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the planes of hell-fire blazed behind them.” He pauses for another sip; a metallic scent wafts from the glass. “With a fierce sweep of his am, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves.” 

He closes the book, then presses his thumb to the its foredge, fanning out the pages. “‘What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man?’” he asks, finally looking up at me, a smile playing on that cruel mouth.

“You have found my journal, Count,” I reply, as smoothly as I can manage. “You can imagine how embarrassed I am to know that a distinguished person such as yourself has lost time reading my crude, clumsy thoughts, and that you’ve suffered through my childish expressions of feeling.”

“Not at all. You have quite the flair for description, my young friend. Or, should I say, defamation.”

I smile weakly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” 

“These were the things you wrote in your letter to Miss Mina, no? In the letter you secreted to the post, the letter I intercepted but could not read?” 

I swallow. The Count sees my fingers tremble and sets the journal in his lap, then rest his hands on its cover. “‘You would make havoc for me, Englishman,” he declares. His tone is calm, and his smile remains. “You would spread these claims among your associates in London. Defile my name before I even arrive." I find myself growing hungry for some sign of anger or frustration, if only to break the building tension. He gives me nothing. 

“I mean only to serve as your solicitor, Count. To slander you would defy the very purpose of my journey.” My tongue seems to swell in my mouth. “And you are all powerful here; even if I attempted such a thing, I could not hope to succeed.” 

The Count rises from his seat, and I stumble back. He is tall even in daylight; now he appears to stretch with the shadows to the distant ceiling. He saunters to the hearth and pokes at the fire, triggering crackles and sparks. “Indeed. I am master of everything for miles.” I glance at the supine stranger on the floor. Meanwhile, my journal is still in Count’s clutches, and as he moves, it swings ever closer to the flames. 

"My journal," I croak. "Please, return it to me."

“You still have need of your clumsy thoughts, your childish expressions of feeling, even if no one else will ever read them?” A log tumbles to the floor of the hearth—more sparks spray. 

"You yourself, Count, have said that Transylvania is not England, and that I would see many strange things. I take them down for that I might not forget, for the sake of...for the sake of my mind.” 

The Count sets the journal down beside his drink on the end table. I stifle a gasp of relief. This respite is short lived, for he brushes past his chair and strides toward me. I involuntarily shuffle backward into a craven crouch. Before I can slink from his grasp, he reaches out and braces my back, graceful as a lead dancer. His touch all but paralyzes me. His hand brushes my jacket and his fingers flex as they probe the edges of the letter opener beneath the fabric. My breath grows shallow as he slips his hand into my silk-lined pocket and retrieves it. He turns it slowly by its mother of pearl handle, and watches, amused, as errant firelight drips down the blade. 

My heart thunders in my chest. A predator as fearsome as he must hear it. 

“Then what would you have, Mr. Harker?” the Count asks, his teeth gleaming as his smile widens. “Your reason, or your pride?” 

The smoke from the hearth is suddenly all the nearer, and its sting wrenches tears from my eyes. I gulp for air. The edges of my vision blur, and Renfield’s laughter rings in my ears. I have lost the battle for my pride already, and my reason dangles by a thread. 

“The journal,” I gasp. “Please.”

Hellfire catches in the Count’s eyes. The points of his canine teeth shine. He slips the jacket from my shoulders and it pools about my feet. He raises the blade to my ear, then runs the flat of it along my jawline. The metal is still warm. He traces my carotid artery, twisting the letter opener so that the touch of its edge is light as breath against my throat. I bite down on my lip, and a drop of blood surfaces.

His pupils shrink to pinpricks. He slashes down through the front of my waistcoat. Buttons scatter on the floor. I brace myself for a snap of his jaws, but he remains deathly still. He peels away my waistcoat and watches me with curiosity. His grin would be childlike, were it not set beneath those wicked eyes. 

“You fear forgetting, my young friend?” The Count’s voice is shockingly gentle. “You fear weakness in your mind?”

I can’t see the blade. I tilt my head down, and then I feel it beneath my chin as the Count tips it up. His copper-scented breath wafts into my nostrils. An image of my crucifix flashes in my mind—it dangles from the rosary beads looped around a peg above my bed. Tears well up once more, and mucus drips from my nostrils down over my philtrum. The Count cups my cheek, and I shudder at the hairs on his palm, coarse as spider legs. 

I am going to die here. I will never make it back to London. 

The Count smooths back my collar. He grips my shirt and tears down through my shirtsleeves and undershirt, this time with his own hand. The rip splits the air like lightning, and I cry out at the sound, at the rush of cold air against my skin. 

“Mr. Renfield thought the same, when he was here.” The Count draws the rent pieces of my shirts away and runs his hand over my breast, lingering in my chest hair and on my nipples. His jet hair slithers over his shoulders as he leans in to inspect me. His women have supped at my throat, forearms, and wrists, but they have spared my chest. It dawns on me that they have left this for him. 

"I will tell you what I told him: your mind is stronger than you think. All these things you see, you hear, you sense in those places your rational mind does not control: they are real." He strokes my sternum and draws a languid loop around my navel. The scant flesh of my belly quivers. Every nerve fiber in my body tightens. I lock eyes with him, powerless to do anything else.

“Nevertheless, I will help you, Mr. Harker. I will ensure you do not forget."

The letter opener flashes in the corner of my eye. The blade stings my breast, just above my left nipple. Red suffuses the whites of the Count eyes. My cries echo off the lofty ceilings of the library. Fear drowns out my thoughts, like the peals of a great bell. 

Several seconds pass before I realize that the sting has not abated, and that a warm rivulet of blood flows down my chest. The Count drags the blade in a great arc to my breastbone; more blood beads and plummets to the floor. He wields this blade with an artist’s deliberation, and it penetrates with exquisite pressure. Wings spread across my body; a tail unfurls from between my ribs. He flicks his wrist and jaws open over my throbbing heart. 

My shrieks dim to moans and finally whimpers as sensations overwhelm me and unmoor my mind. The pain is a faint, buzzing current snaking from one side of my body to the other. I drift outside my body, drunk on the exhaustion that follows in horror’s wake. From a cobwebbed corner of the room I watch the Count. His gestures are more than practiced; they are second nature. He has inflicted these wounds on countless fallen enemies before me—Magyar, Avar, Lombard, Bulgar, Turk—and legions more will follow when he reaches England.

Something raspy and wet pulls me from my reverie and back into my body. I look down to find the Count’s hands clutching my ribs and my hip. His face is pressed to my belly as my blood trickles down from his incisions. His tongue glides lasciviously over my flesh, lapping up stream after stream. I struggle and he grips me tighter, moaning as he takes in my sweat, my blood, my dignity, my humanity. I throw myself to the floor that I might escape his blasphemous embrace. He sweeps over my body like a plume of smoke and kisses me. His tongue forces my mouth open and my blood, ferrous, thick, and sweet, seeps in. He swallows my screams until I am spent, then pulls away, laughing.

“You and your words are nothing,” the Count growls in my ear. “You are dust, and I will crush you under my heel as I rise.” He licks a line of blood from my collarbone. Red droplets glisten in his mustache. “But you will remember me, and belong to me, all your days.” He descends on me once more, and my world is overcome by darkness.

***

I wake in a band of scalding sunlight, splayed out on a stone floor. My lips are cracked, my throat raspy, my body desiccated. Drapes have been drawn, revealing massive windows that reach the distant ceiling vaults. An upholstered chair looms next to me; beyond it ashes lie in clumps in the silent, empty hearth. 

I roll over on my side, and as I twist a fresh sting spreads through a labyrinth of gashes on my chest. I seethe, reach down, and wince at ridges of scabbed-over flesh. Blackened blood gathers on the pads of my fingers. The nameless dread that filled my nightmares seeps back into my thoughts.

I clamber to my feet. Tattered strips of my shirts drift over my skin as I move. Beyond the overstuffed chair, I spot my journal resting on an end table beside an empty glass. I tiptoe over to it, open its covers, fan through its pages. My writing spills down every page, my words spattered in ink, slanted in panic. The vice gripping my heart opens for a moment—my uncorrupted self is still within reach.

A trail of crimson smears catches my eye from across the room. It stretches from a broad dark stain at the far side of the room to the door. Five tributaries cluster together—these marks were made by fingertips. The stranger lay there, and Dracula—

My hand drifts down to my chest once more. Terror bubbles up from deep within me; memories of last night rise perilously close to the surface. I lift my gaze to the bank of towering windows, which continue to pour oppressive sunlight into the chamber. The glass of their panes glints back at me. As I approach, my reflection sharpens and deepens the scarlet lines on my skin, and I feel an echo of the blade’s exquisite bite. At last I see it: a dragon, Dracula’s indelible mark, etched into my forsaken flesh for all time. I scream, releasing the last of the man I was.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes from Jonathan Harker’s diary taken from Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. Grossat and Dunlap, New York.


End file.
